


For Dear Life

by deskclutter



Category: The Sandman
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-22
Updated: 2010-06-22
Packaged: 2017-10-10 05:37:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deskclutter/pseuds/deskclutter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hob Gadling and his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Dear Life

  
**Title:** For Dear Life  
**Day/Theme:** February 06 / the spell that cannot be broken  
**Series:** Sandman  
**Character/Pairing:** Hob Gadling  
**Rating:** G  
There was a ship he had owned once, and he has crossed the seas on it. There had been a boy on board called Jim, only he was actually a she, though Hob had known beforehand and he didn't give it away. He had his own secrets too, beginning with being the owner of the ship, which no one but the cabin boy had found out, and ending at his extremely long and healthy life. In a sense, he had just traded one secret for another, and following that, he never saw the girl again.

He's met a lot of people that way, and when they leave without re-entering his life, he's glad, sometimes. That way he doesn't watch them die and there are no funerals to attend or muttered words of "I _told_ you: don't die, you silly bugger" to mutter.

There was one bloke he thought he'd never have to say it to, and he didn't; he got piss-drunk at the wake instead, but so did everyone else. Some might say that meeting once every hundred years is no basis for a friendship, but screw it, he was a fixture in Hob's life for years, established since 1389. They'd drunk together. That was enough for friendship, hell, it was _more_ than enough, when he was young, and it's enough for counting.

There isn't enough shit at the Renfaire, so Hob provides the rest with his shitty mood, despite the company. "It is no small thing to enslave another human being," he remembers, and he babbles guiltily to Gwen, who tells him to stop being stupid. He doesn't listen. He drinks cold beer and wishes it were mead, until he goes to the dilapidated building that is not dilapidated at all, by Hob's exacting standards. Some things have to go before their time and some just keep delaying theirs. It doesn't equal out in the end, not really.

"Death's a mug's game," he said once, and just like that, she's there. She's beautiful, and her brother's dead, and you know what? He can't find it in him blame her for it. She asks him if it's time, and for a moment, he doesn't know.

Later, Gwen finds him. There's a reason he goes to the funerals; he's got a life to celebrate, and the bits of theirs he's to keep alive for them. That was her nudge to stop playing at silly buggers, wasn't it? Hob Gadling's not one to ignore two gorgeous women when they tell him the same thing.

Death may be as lovely as London in the time of Queen Beth, but Hob's not in a position to accept her. He's much too in love with life to let go yet.

**Author's Note:**

> I made an error when I first posted this fic, and have not corrected this. Hob Gadling probably did see Jim/Margaret again, and she was probably Peggy.


End file.
